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The first two parts of this blog provided the information supporting the fact that women face an unfair disadvantage in terms of planning for a successful retirement.

If you’ve not yet read parts one and two of this blog, please take a few moments to do so.

Here are the action steps that women can take to help prepare themselves for healthcare and retirement costs.

Tell your story and expect to be heard and honored. You and your planning needs are unique. You deserve the opportunity to “share your story as well as your hopes, fears and dreams”.

Regardless of your current life experience and financial knowledge, you deserve to be listened to without judgment.

You deserve to have all of your questions answered honestly and completely.

You deserve transparency around fees, commissions, and any other form of advisor compensation.

Create a plan and follow it. Again, this is “your plan”. It needs to be designed specifically for you to get you from “where you are to where you want to be”.

Invest with appropriate risk level. Again, your investment portfolio needs to be designed specifically for you and what it is you want to accomplish.

If you are of a pre-retirement age, be prepared to save aggressively to meet your goals.

If you are already retired, then the allocation of your investment portfolio may be even more critical because you may no longer have the capacity to continue to save to reach your retirement goals.

Be sure you understand how programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and employer-sponsored retirement plans can best be coordinated for maximum results.

Consider products such as life insurance with long-term care riders, products that are designed to create guaranteed lifetime income in retirement, products that are designed to create income tax savings, and anything else that may be appropriate to help you reach financial peace of mind.

Once your plan is in place, be sure to continue with annual conversations with your team of advisors.

As you can see, planning done well is complex and involves the integration of both programs, products and planning.

Do you remember the old Greyhound bus slogan, “Go Greyhound and Leave the Driving to Us”?

It is suggested that the new slogan might be “Keep Texting and Leave the Driving to Us!”

Whether you find yourself familiar with the first slogan or relate more to the new slogan, we invite you to a conversation at Resonate. Regardless of your age, our motto is to help you define and discover what Richness of Life means to you. Then, it is our job to help create the pathway for you to experience this desired destination.

In the first part of this three-part blog, we talked about why the U.S. demographics of an aging society present more of a challenge for women than for men.

Here are some additional thoughts for your consideration:

In part one, we suggested that the fact that women still tend to outlive men by 3 to 5 years definitely contributes to the financial challenges that women face in retirement.

Here is a chart that supports that information:

The second reason that women face an uneven challenge is because we still experience a disadvantage in the work place. In addition to the fact that women are still more likely than men to leave the workforce intermittently, we also know that women are more likely to hold lower- wage and part-time jobs, both of which are detrimental to funding future retirement.

So what can women do about this? That will be the focus of part three in this series.

In his annual letter to shareholders, BlackRock’s Larry Fink shares these thoughts on April 10, 2017.

“The graying of the population in developed countries is without precedent in human history.

While most developing countries outside of China can look forward to a demographic tailwind for many years, developed countries are rapidly aging.”

(1)

“According to estimates by the United Nations between 2015 and 2030, the number of people in the world aged 60 years or over is projected to grow by 56%, from 901 million to 1.4 billion. The number of people aged 80 years or over, the “oldest old” persons, is growing even faster. Projections indicate that in 2050 the oldest old will number 434 million, having more than tripled in number since 2015, when there were 125 million people over age 80.”

If you happen to be female, the situation is even worse. For decades to come, women’s life expectancy on average will continue to be 3 to 5 years longer than that for men. This results in higher healthcare expenses in addition to coping with inflation for a longer period of time. (2)

If you are age 50+ and in relatively good health, please do not wait any longer to contact us!

We will work with you to determine what you need in the way of income and assets to help assure a successful retirement. Then, we will work with you to create a plan to fulfill that goal.

If you have not read the first blog in this three-part series, “An Overdue Apology to Women”, dated April 7, you might find it helpful because it is applicable to this blog as well.

The first piece focused on how women clients are often discounted in the relationship with the financial advisor. It resulted in my apologizing on behalf of the industry to anyone who has experienced this type of discriminatory treatment.

The second part in this series centered on how single women are often victims of “product-pushers” as opposed to professional advisors who are also fiduciaries. See previous blog titled: “Are You Ready for Disturbing Survey Results about Single Women and Financial Advisors?”

This third part in the Women’s Series shares some important information on women breadwinners.

Who qualifies as a woman breadwinner? Anyone who earns at least one-half of the household income and is also involved in the financial decisions.

Often, these professional women hold positions in middle management through executive positions.

If you have not read my previous blog, “An Overdue Apology to Women”, you might find it helpful because it is applicable to this blog as well.

The first piece focused on how women clients are often discounted in the relationship with the financial advisor. It resulted in my apologizing on behalf of the industry to anyone who has experienced this type of discriminatory treatment.

While this blog continues on the same theme, the focus is now on the single woman as opposed to a member of a couple.

This includes the population of women who simply choose to remain single as well as those who may be divorced.

While the topic of this blog focuses on women, I am writing it to be read by both genders.

Why?

Because, as we all know, the woman in a marriage typically outlives her husband. It is also true that, in general, a single woman has an extended longevity compared to a single man.
(Source: Vanguard, “Plan for a Long Retirement”

Statistics reveal that 70% of the time a widow chooses a new financial advisor within weeks of her husband’s passing. (Source: CNBC, “For Some Widows, Breaking up with an Advisor is Easy to Do”, Ilana Polyak, 10/11/14).

Why does this happen? Among others, here are some of the reasons given:

The American Psychological Association
published a study called “Paying with Our Health”.

I found it to be especially informative; it also raised my awareness about the impact of financial stress in the lives of women. It further increased my concern for women and money as I read about the relationship between financial stress and physical health.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

Year after year, women’s experiences with stress continue to be troubling. They consistently report higher stress levels than men do, and they appear to have a hard time coping.1 These patterns also emerge when it comes to their relationship with money and finances.

Women report higher levels of stress about money than men (5.0 vs. 4.3 on a 10-point scale) and are more likely than men to say they feel stress about money all or most of the time (30 percent vs. 21 percent).

Women who say their stress about money is high (8, 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale) are more likely than women who say they have low stress about money (1, 2 or 3 on a 10-point scale) than to say they engage in sedentary or unhealthy behaviors to manage their stress, such as watching television/movies for more than two hours per day (55 percent vs. 38 percent), surfing the Internet (57 percent vs. 34 percent), napping/sleeping (41 percent vs. 23 percent), eating (40 percent vs. 19 percent), drinking alcohol (21 percent vs. 9 percent) or smoking (19 percent vs. 7 percent).

Women who say their stress about money is high are significantly more likely than women who say they have low stress about money to rate their health as fair or poor (34 percent vs. 13 percent).

1: Men n=1204; Women n=1864.

Does any of this fit for you or someone you care about?

If so, please know that the Resonate team considers it both our privilege and responsibility to hold the conversation about “Money and Stress”. We have prepared multiple resources designed to create alternatives and fresh ideas designed to reduce financial stress.

We are comfortable engaging in these emotional conversations and recognize the importance of them.

We welcome hearing your concerns about money and are committed to sharing stress-relieving ideas designed especially for you.

Did you know that 55% of Social Security beneficiaries are women?

Social Security is important for all seniors, but it’s a particularly valuable program for women for a combination of reasons.

The Social Security Administration data continues to indicate that, on average, women have shorter lifetime work histories than men. This is true in spite of the growing number of women in the workforce.

Next, because women still tend to outlive men by an average of 5 years, they will receive payments longer than men. (Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Unfortunately, the widow will receive only one Social Security check. While it represents the larger of the two checks that the couple had received, this reduction in income is still significant. As of December 2015, retired male workers were receiving an average benefits check of $1,500 per month, compared to $1,182 for women. (Source: www.ssa.gov)

This is depicted in the chart below.

(Credit also to the Motley Fool “6 Social Security Facts you’re Probably Not Aware of”, Sean Williams, September 15, 2016.)

This is one of the reasons that the Resonate team specializes in working with women. Whether married, never-married, partnered, divorced, or widowed, we welcome you. We know how to take the complicated issues and make them clear and understandable; we are committed to working in your best interest, and are excellent at helping create a plan and pathway to get you from “where you are to where you want to be”. We provide financial peace of mind so that you can relax and enjoy life.

I have been amazed at the resilience I see many widows demonstrate as they create a new vision for their life going forward.

Yet we also know that being widowed can be a very scary, sad and difficult space.

Just as we create “Diminished Capacity Directives” as guidelines to use during the aging process while everyone is as healthy and clear-headed as possible, I think it makes sense to also have the “What If I Am Widowed” plan in place on a pre-need basis.

Why is this important? Because 700,000-800,000 women lose their husbands each year and will be widowed for an average of 14 years.
(Source: “Advice for Widows” Charest Company LLP)

The August-September issue of the Morningstar Magazine for professional advisors has an interesting interview with Sylvia Kwan. Sylvia is the chief financial officer of Ellevest – a company that specializes in investing for women.

Here are some of their positions with which your Resonate team agrees:

1. “Investing shouldn’t be unisex.” Women’s investment preferences and goals are often different from men’s. These preferences need to be heard, acknowledged, and factored into the investment portfolios.

2. “Women working outside the home experiences more wage losses than male counterparts.” This is due to taking career breaks to honor family commitments and due to the ongoing gender pay gap. Couple this with women’s actuarially longer lifespans and there is an obvious need for custom planning for women.

3. “Life changes are a certainty.” While we may not yet know what will change (health, issues with aging parents, divorce, special needs of children), we are committed to continually building our relationship so that we are there when you need us to again listen and provide appropriate (although different) recommendations.

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Advisory services may only be offered by Investment Adviser Representatives in connection with an appropriate ValMark Advisers, Inc. advisory services agreement and Disclosure Brochure (Form ADV Part II, as provided).